A completed Chatterbox with a groovy retro youth trend theme.
BRAVO, trusted adult!
We are so excited that you are here and want to have effective and affirming conversations with the young person/s in your life. Chatterbox Chats is a resource for parents, caregivers, and trusted adults to support their ability to have meaningful conversations with the young people in their lives.
The Adolescent and Reproductive Health (ARH) team envisions a world where all young people will grow and become happy, healthy, and thriving adults. We bet you want the same for the young people you know. To achieve this vision, we've created the Chatterbox to help facilitate meaningful conversations between adults and young people.
You may be wondering why the Chatterbox is not digital. It is printable to facilitate vital in person one-on-one connection and allows us to take a break from our screens. Further, the hands-on game experience that the Chatterbox provides can help young people better engage, learn, and retain health information.
There are several versions of the Chatterbox on a variety of topics, each containing eight different questions. These questions are based on adolescent health topics that are relevant to young people and were discussed with Nebraska youth-serving professionals, experts, trusted adults, and young people. Each Chatterbox has a different decade theme based on past youth trends. This is throwback to when you may have been an adolescent and needing the same information as the young person/s in your life. Regardless of the decade, adults and young people have always needed to have meaningful conversations. Keep a lookout on our website because the ARH team will continue to release new totally rad (see what we did there) Chatterboxes.
Adults are key providers of information to young people. Engaging in conversations with the young person/s in your life provides the opportunity to share accurate information, discuss values, and learn skills. This may surprise you, but young people want to have important conversations about health topics with the adults in their lives! Further, parent-child communication is an effective strategy to delay sexual initiation, increase condom use, and decrease sexual risk behaviors (Family & Youth Services Bureau, 2016; Kitchen & Huberman, 2011).
You may be a pro at having conversations with your young person/s or you may have never engaged in these types of conversations. Either way, here are some helpful conversation tips!
Before starting a meaningful conversation with your young person/s, taking time to reflect, review, and practice can help you feel more prepared.
- Reflect: It can feel intimidating to have a conversation with your young person/s, especially if you did not grow up having open and honest conversations with a trusted adult. Starting a conversation with your young person/s about topics relevant to their life builds trust and shows them that they can come to you to get their questions answered. You may find it helpful to reflect on your own experiences growing up and what information you wish you had.
- Review: We suggest reviewing the questions in the Chatterbox before introducing it to your young person/s. This can help you feel more prepared to engage in the conversation.
- Practice: You may feel more comfortable with some topics than others. For the topics you find more difficult to discuss, we suggest practicing the question and possible responses in the mirror, with a friend, or a pet (seriously, they won't judge you!). Practicing in the mirror allows you to see if your body language is saying something you don't want it to. You always want what you are verbalizing to match your body language. If your young person/s shares a response that shocks you and your face shows it, you can acknowledge it (you're human - it happens!) and keep the conversation moving.
You will want to think about the personal questions young people may ask that you are comfortable or uncomfortable responding to. The way you choose to respond to personal questions may depend on your role.
- A parent, caregiver, or family member may feel more comfortable sharing personal information to provide a real-life view on a topic. This can facilitate a deeper discussion. Adults in these roles can share personal values to shape a young person's values and beliefs.
- A youth-serving professional should never share personal information that would cross a healthy boundary. It is not the role of youth-serving professionals to share personal information to get a young person to think a certain way or have a specific value.
- To prepare for personal questions, it is beneficial for youth-serving professionals to establish group agreements that include “pass". This creates a shared understanding that a person can always “pass" on a question that they do not wish to answer.
- Youth-serving professionals should reinforce universal values during conversations.
As you are navigating the Chatterboxes, you may wonder how to effectively address some of the following topics when they come up:
- Slang: Groovy! Rad! Da Bomb! Fire! – Young people may use their own lingo when engaging in meaningful conversations. Do not be ashamed to ask them to define any unfamiliar terms. If slang is used, this can be an opportunity for you to share a medically accurate term. For example, if a young person uses slang to refer to a specific body part.
- Responding to Follow-up Questions: When using the Chatterbox, your young person/s may ask additional questions about a topic. Remember to carefully listen to what is being asked and do not jump to conclusions. For example, a young person asking about a behavior does not mean they are participating in a behavior. Further, keep your responses simple and straightforward. If your response did not answer their question, you could rephrase or provide more details.
- Switch Up the Setting: If you and/or your young person/s feel uncomfortable discussing a topic or question, try switching up the setting. For example, you could sit back-to-back or safely use the Chatterbox when one of you is driving and the other is a passenger in the car. For some, it is helpful to have no eye contact and a set amount of time for the conversation before you get to your destination.
- Be a Trusted Source of Honest Information: You do not need to be an expert on a topic to have a conversation with your young person/s. However, it is important that you are always honest when you do not know the answer. Accidentally or purposely providing inaccurate information could cause your young person/s to lose trust in you as a source of information. If you do not know the answer, you can tell your young person/s that you will research the topic and get back to them OR you can seek out the information together.
- Leave the Door Open for Meaningful Conversations: Unfortunately, we cannot promise that the young person/s in your life will always want to have these important conversations with you. If the young person/s shuts down the conversation, you want to leave the door open for conversations in the future. You could say, “I can tell that you don't want to have this conversation right now. I am here when you need me, and I hope we can continue this discussion in the future." It may also be appropriate to encourage your young person/s to consider if there are other trusted adults that they feel comfortable talking with about these topics. You may not always be the “best" or most knowledgeable person. For example, a mother could encourage her son to talk to a male trusted adult about body changes that she does not have personal experience with. You can let your young person/s know it is perfectly ok to seek information from others. The most important thing is that your young person/s feels like they have someone to talk to that listens and understands. If your young person/s name/s a specific trusted adult that they would like to have a meaningful conversation with, it would be helpful to give that trusted adult a “heads up".
The General Resources serves as a guide to accurate information sources about adolescent health topics. This guide will empower parents, caregivers, and trusted adults to engage in meaningful conversations with young people by offering a wealth of resources and a clarified understanding of various subjects.
Discovering the art of Chatterbox Chats unfolds with two options. You can choose to follow along with the comprehensive video tutorial above or the written guide below. Both options will guide you through each fold and play step to enjoy this meaningful conversation game.
Each Chatterbox set has its own conversation theme that contains the following:
- One Chatterbox;
- A list of that Chatterbox's questions as an alternative option;
- A Glossary of Terms that provides accurate definitions of terms often encountered while playing with the Chatterbox; and
- Question-specific resources for parents, caregivers, and trusted adults to assist in having meaningful conversations with their young person/s.